Endless
by Olympia the Ocelot
Summary: The computers in our highschool have been tampered with, I know that now, but why send us here...and why all of us? All 1000 students at our boring highschool seem to have found their way onto my Minecraft world against their will, and I can only imagine who did it, and more importantly, their motives. Seriously, do you know how dumb that sounds? What do want, you ass?
1. An Introduction I Guess

**An Introduction I Guess**

* * *

I'm normal so to speak.

Well, I'm a complete weeaboo cringe-fest but hey, that's still technically normal.

Still human.

Oh screw this philosophy stuff, I'm getting to the point.

My name is Delaney, I'm fourteen, and despite the fact that I'm someone that weird, not to mention a total recluse who spends all of their time online or trying to figure out why Chromebooks don't support any mainstream documents programs yet, I still have three friends that I more or less hang out with when I can or when I'm not so lazy or so caught up in Netflix that I don't feel like it.

It used to be four but Jared graduated. He looked pretty spiffy in that grad gown I must say.

Keks aside, now would probably be a good time to say that us Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are high school sophomores now, and today's the first day of the school year. Now we can finally stop being ostracised just for being younger.

Seriously, it's just annoying to hear going down the hallway, "Ugh, those freshmen are so annoying, they think they own the place," well newsflash, honey, you don't exactly own it either, especially when there're two grades above you little miss sophomore.

My only hope for this year is that I don't turn out like those self-entitled brats.

But I digress far from the topic.

Uh...my friends...should I give a list? I'll give a list.

Aliza - my oldest friend, both in terms of how long we've been friends and the fact that she's somehow sixteen without having being held back once in her life. Friggin lucky ass gets to get her driver's permit, meanwhile, I gotta wait another two years. She's artsy, has a strong sense of what's right, and is overall a total right-brainer.

Grace - fifteen, a fandom-goer like me, only not nearly as cancerous as she actually has a sense of initiative. She likes morbid jokes and aspires to take over Russia.

Olivia - once read a highly "descriptive" Danny Phantom smut without gagging, and she doesn't think much of it. Enough said. Oh and I met her in like fifth grade or something, she's fifteen, so I guess enough wasn't said at all.

I have medium-long-ish brown hair and brown eyes.

Yeah, that's pretty much it, sorry for dragging on.

Oh, yeah, except the fact that we're gonna get trapped in Minecraft along with 1000+ other high school students. _Frick._

* * *

 **Oh hey would ya look at that, this fanfiction thing is pretty fun. I'm doing more chapters so follow the story if you're interested, and let it be known that I don't currently plan on killing this thing off anytime soon.**

 **Oh, and make sure to leave a review! I especially appreciate the ones that point out grammatical or spelling errors.**

* * *

 **The cover art for this fic was made by and given permission for me to use by NightshadeArtist on DeviantArt.**

 **Because FFN is paranoid about spam links, I was unable to put the link to the actual cover art, sorry.**


	2. It Wasn't a Drill

**It Wasn't a Drill**

* * *

We had all slept over at my house the night before, because who really cares about the first day? Besides, my house is right next to the school, so we got to sleep in longer.

My mom dropped us all off at the doors, and as she and I exchanged a very long-winded battle of "I love you" and "bye" back and forth, my friends got out of the car.

Fun fact, my little brother had to lay down in the trunk because we didn't have enough seats, but don't worry, he had fun back there, as he was playing Magic: The Gathering against himself; he's a nerd like the rest of us.

We walked up to the glass lobby doors and went inside to wait for dismissal to our homerooms (if you get to school early you have to wait for the buses to come).

When they finally came, we went our separate ways to separate homerooms, although Aliza and I went together, as we always seem to somehow be in the same science class, in this case, first period biology.

* * *

The day was a normal first day: introductions to the teachers, talking about what the class was gonna teach us, a half a million papers to bring home for our parents to sign, yadda yadda etc.

During second period, world history in my case, we finished all that boring stuff early, and I even got a few worksheets done, so I had a little extra time at the end. I usually go to the bathroom during lunch which is during third period, but I have the latest lunch this semester (lucky me), so I figured I might as well use this time wisely for once.

I got a pass from the teacher and headed down the hall to the bathrooms, boredom on my mind, but when I was about half-way there…

 _The fire alarms started blaring._

I didn't know why that would be happening! Why on the first day of school? Not to mention this was a surprise drill, and they only do that later in the second semester!

 _Unless it's not a drill._

I noticed kids pouring out of their classrooms and out emergency exits farther down the halls.

Of course they were calm, they likely didn't realize it wasn't a drill.

I started sprinting down the hall to try and catch up to the crowd, as the area on the way to the bathrooms is smack in the middle of the school. I cursed my luck, but it happens that what would happen now would fall in my favor in the future. But that's not important now….

I ran further down the halls until I turned a corner, but I skidded to a halt and basically did a double-take at the wall I had passed to see if what I thought I saw was real.

It was.

I stood in shock as in front of me was a door that appeared to had been _blown open._

I couldn't help but half-shout half-whisper, "What the hell?!" despite the fact that I'm not typically one to audibly curse.

The edges of the wooden door were burnt, some actually still slightly on fire (I guess I know what set off the alarms now), its metal frame looked scorched and even _melted_ in some places, its hinges were essentially _ripped out of the wall_ near the bottom, and glass had been blown inwards to the other side from whatever obviously explosive impact had caused this.

I recognized the room as the server room for all of our school district's computers, not to mention the wi-fi, ethernet connections, and data storage for all of our documents for all of our classes. We learned about it last year in tech class, and it should be locked, so I suppose that could explain the...extreme measures...taken to open it.

Then I heard scuffling in the back. I wasn't sure what to do at all一do I run or go to look?!

I didn't have to decide, though, as the sound eventually came to _me_.

There was movement behind one of the machines near the back, but before I could make out who exactly it was, a bloodied hand reached out from the figure and _slammed_ what looked like something similar to a large thumb drive into an empty socket on the machine where it seemed wires had been forcefully pulled out.

The server whirred and lit up as it registered whatever data had been on the large drive, and it gave off a faint light from all of its small LED bulbs.

A faint light that slowly grew so blinding that it spread across the room, banishing all shadows that had ever been there as it spread from machine to machine.

The figure stepped forward slightly, releasing its grip on the drive. Its face一no, _his_ face一was illuminated by the white light of the servers, but it's not like that was much use in identifying him.

His eyes seemed to be engulfed in light anyways.

* * *

 **Oh wow, that was a long one.**

 **I likey.**


	3. Online

**Online**

* * *

I had blacked out.

Now I felt like I was floating. Somewhere. _Somewhere._

I was disoriented, and I couldn't tell what direction I was moving, or if I even _was_ moving. I felt half awake.

"I think I'm vertical," I whispered to nothingness. I was standing yet floating. There was nothing around me, nothing but a dark, grey-blue horizon expanding in all directions, and I think I saw a few clouds in the sky, floating ominously above me, dark as night.

All of sudden, I felt a strange pull on my body, as if gravity had only now started to take effect here, but I wasn't going down. I felt a weird rumbling that felt like an earthquake.

As if a world was being thrown into existence below my feet, I stumbled on hard, flat terra firma. I fell to the ground, only to lift my head and find I was outside. Something was wrong, though.

"I must be having a lucid dream," I thought in denial, but no, this was in front of me. This was real.

"Am I…? Oh shit."

I had fallen, or rather, _spawned,_ in a thicket of trees, like a little grotto. I could see I was right at the edge of a river, which passed through a valley of mountains with a forest of tall spruce trees on the opposite bank.

There was no wind, the river didn't flow, the leaves on trees stayed in place, and most apparent, there was the fact I was in a world of blocks.

Minecraft.

There was this division of my mind that thought, "Yeah, this is too real not to be fake. You're dreaming," and yet another that just wanted to stay here. Both were confused.

I stood up to try and get a grip on what might be happening and immediately noticed two grey buttons that suddenly popped up into the corners of my vision. Curious, of course, I pressed the one on the left, to which a chat box opened with a sharp _click_ , which happened to already have some text in it.

I started reading it from the top down, earliest to most recent.

 _ **[WORLD LOADED]**_

 _ **[WORLD ONLINE]**_

 **Rafila1 has joined the game**

 _Rafila1 was my MCPE username._

"So I'm on PE?"

Wait a second.

I turned to my left side and further behind me found a simple, diagonal bridge of spruce wood going just barely above the unmoving river. This seemed _familiar._

Sure enough, when I ran near the bridge, a square oak house came into view, with a fenced area full of chickens to its right, and a slew of other buildings behind it. There was a statue of the infamous white-eyed Steve skin I had made with complete accuracy out of wool and terracotta (according to the new update it's not hardened clay anymore).

I was in the PE survival world I played with on my phone….

Then I remembered the stranger in the server room back at my school, who had plugged in the unknown drive, and all of the day's thoughts and memories came back to me at that moment.

And within that same moment, I realized something: I was in _his_ domain.

 _I was in Herobrine's domain._


	4. One to Three

**OKAY, THIS ONE'S REALLY LONG, WHAT THE CRAP. GET SOME POPCORN, DIVE INTO YOUR SECRET NETFLIX BUNKER THAT I KNOW YOU HAVE AND PREPARE TO BE HERE FOR A LITTLE WHILE.**

 **This chapter takes place as of Minecraft Pocket Edition update 1.1**

* * *

 **One to Three**

* * *

Trying to keep my mind off of it, I walked up to my house.

It was a very simple thing - a 10 x 10 x 5 oak cube surrounded by a one-block-thick path of polished andesite, which also happened to be what the house's floor was made of. It had a set of oak double doors at the front with a torch on either side.

It may not sound like much, but it does what it needs to do — it's efficient and it's where I put my stuff.

I went inside, and it almost felt good to be 'back.' I had accomplished A LOT on this world: I had huge crop and animal farms with one of each animal and plant, I had found and bred perfect horses, I had an enchantment table with a full room of books around it for high-level enchantments, and of course I had gone to the Nether, and had even found a fortress!

Given, I wussed out on exploring the place normally and had instead OP'ed myself to find the fortress in creative mode, but I made up for it by making myself build the long cobblestone bridge over lava to get there entirely in survival once I found its location. Plus I sacrificed a few hundred chickens by burning them in the Overworld.

Yeah, I had a weird sense of pride when it came to my survival world….

Anyway, I went on ahead to a double chest I had against the left wall, which I had labeled 'Minerals' with a sign, and went to pull out a few iron blocks to make new armor and tools when I realized I hadn't even opened my inventory yet.

Then I remembered the second button that showed up in front of me and thought out loud, "Oh wow, I completely forgot about that one, I bet it must be the inventory button!"

Obvious statements aside, I pressed the button and sure enough, it opened an inventory screen, floating in front of me like a hologram. Emphasis on ' _an,'_ as when I opened it up, it seemed to bear more resemblance to the screen PC uses than PE, as it wasn't divided into tabs, rather it utilized one large screen, with a player model and armor/off-hand slots above twenty-seven item slots and a hotbar with nine more.

That was the first time I saw my skin, and let me just say it was weird looking at something that was me yet not.

For the first time since spawning, I looked down, and sure enough I found that I was wearing the clothes my PE skin uses — a white tank top covered up with a black-and-white knit sweater jacket, a pair of black cargo shorts with the bottoms rolled up and — remember when I said I was a weeb? — white anime-style belts hanging down on my hips coming down from the top of the shorts. Although perhaps if I said it was inspired by steampunk I wouldn't get so much hate? I don't know.

I was also wearing a pair of short, black lace-up boots with a white tongue- and oh my god why did I put so much black and white in my skin? The only things that weren't black or white were the bright, almost neon purple irises in my eyes (and no, I'm not another enderman rip-off, that's just the color of my skin's eyes), my now light brown and actually REALLY long and straight hair, and the two square, purple barrettes keeping said crazy-long hair out of my face on either side.

"Huh, neat."

* * *

I just. Wanted. _SOME ARMOR._ But _NOPE,_ the crafting menu just HAD to be such a little turd, and press the button to make an iron chestplate _SIX TIMES._

"I give up," I sighed, "You'd think you'd have a _little_ more control doin' this yourself, but no, pocket edition is still the glitchy mess I remember!" and I punched the close button in the upper-left corner of the menu in anger. The inventory screen seemed to be the only thing that bore more resemblance to PC, because all other menus, like the aforementioned crafting table, were exactly like their PE counterparts.

Took me a few seconds of standing and staring into space to realize that it hadn't hurt when I punched the screen. I mean, I guess it makes sense, after all, why would you get damaged by closing a screen?

"Hmm, I wonder where my bars are at?" and no, I wasn't talking about my musical inclination, because I know that that's far gone, me being as "tone deaf" as I was, rather I was looking for where I could find my health, hunger, experience, and now that I had on a set of iron, including one of six iron chestplates, my armor bar.

I looked up first, because that's where PE puts its bars, but I only found the tag displaying " **Rafila1"** up there, and I hadn't seen any PC-style hotbar where they would all be floating in front of me, so I was at a loss (haha, I II II L).

"Maybe I'm just not capable of seeing it? Oh, nevermind it's on my arm, heh."

Up and down the underside of my right arm were four bars, floating just above my arm's skin, positioned horizontally so that left end of the bars faced my wrist. The experience bar was at the bottom, above that, hunger, then health, then the armor bar that was now at seven and a half. My hotbar was there, too, bent into the shape of a circle and floating around my wrist, with all of the items I had made each in one of the nine slots, and yes, I'm talking about the other five freaking chestplates I made. Still salty on that one.

The bars slowly faded back into my arm until they were gone, and giving my arm a tap or somewhat flexing the muscles there would make them appear again, and I found I could cycle through my hotbar by moving hands in a clockwise or counter-clockwise manner, clenching my fist to select an item.

Realizing I can't just go bashing zombies over the head with armor (assuming this world was still on normal mode like I had it), I set my focus on re-making the set of iron tools I had back when I played normally, including an actual sword.

And about three back-ups because I over-prepare like that.

* * *

After grabbing a stack of cooked chicken from my food storage, I set back outside to check on all of my buildings to see if everything was still normal from when I had last played.

The sword I had made looked strangely realistic as I selected it from my hotbar and it fell into my hand. I felt it firmly in my grasp as it glinted in the synthetic sunlight. It looked almost a meter long, and while it still had an iron crossguard and pommel, its wooden handle was also covered with a leather wrap. The white blade's edge looked sharp, and almost felt powerful in my hand, and had a shallow fuller running up and down its sides. Despite the fuller, it was actually somewhat heavy, too.

Nevertheless, I went on my way to check my little base I call home.

* * *

I was finishing up — nothing seemed off about anything I had made: my horses were okay in their stables, the barns I made for cows, pigs, and sheep were fine, my llamas were doing good (even if some of their leads attaching them to the walls of their stables had snapped, but that's PE for you, I guess), and my more utilitarian community buildings hadn't been blown up or anything, like my subway to NPC villages, my underground beacon, or the guest room my friends camped out in when they joined while at my house, even if only my brother or Grace ever joined this particular world.

Admittedly, the redstone lamps I had used as the eyes of the ' _statue'_ right behind my house were glowing a little more white than I would have liked them to, and that was a bit worrying, especially considering I set them to only light up at night. Maybe I just needed to fix it again. Don't get me wrong, I'm no idiot, but one had to desperately hope for those things rather than have to deal with the alternative.

* * *

I was headed back to my house, which was back at the far side of my base, to decide what to do next, as I was pretty much at a loss for how I could get out, as much as this seemed like it could be an interesting adventure.

I was in a clearing in between my barns, when I could've sworn I had felt _wind._

"There's not supposed to be wind in here..." I whispered to myself, exhausted.

Just then, I got an alert from my chat box:

 **has joined the game**

"What the crap? It's blank."

The wind started to pick up immediately after the message popped up, and it felt like there was a strange, heated energy in it. I started to breath heavier as the air got thicker. Something powerful's coming. _He's_ coming.

Then, all of a sudden, it stopped. I felt the presence of something behind me.

"So you're a girl? What a shame," the voice sent chills throughout my whole body, "When I saw you I was hoping that you were just some dork with long hair. Hm... _'_ _Rafila1_ _ **.'**_ "

I didn't dare turn to face the cynical voice reading my nametag behind me; assuming that I still had a heart in my chest, it was definitely beating.

"Are you planning on doing something or what? Or do you not even care about what's happening? Funny, I thought humans liked asking questions."

He walked up in front of me, and my eyes locked with empty, glowing sockets. Nothing can express the terror of making eye contact with _him_.

Herobrine's eyes make you feel like you're being _burned_ to death.

He squinted at me, and I could tell he was getting irritable, "Well?"

 _I have to hit him and make a break for it._

I grabbed my sword from my hotbar and tried to strike at his face, only for him to nonchalantly raise his hand to the sword, to which it shattered at the point, while the tang got pulled out from its slot in the hilt.

"Was that really necessary?"

I darted my eyes back at the shards of sword lying on the ground in horror, which had started to despawn, turning into white dust and floating upwards like an animal's death sequence.

Herobrine started towards me, cold eyes dead set on me, and I instinctively backed up, keeping my distance from him, but before I knew it, I was backed against the wall of my cows' barn.

He leaned in and spoke slowly. I noticed that he had faint, grey-white pupils, "How long...do you think you've been here, hm...? A few hours, maybe…?"

"I…."

"I assure you...that you've been in here for no more than... _ **five minutes,**_ " the voice he used at the end made me shutter. "Maybe you haven't figured out...the ratio yet?"

I answer quietly, "Ratio? I-"

"The ratio of one to three. For every hour that passes in existence, _three days pass in our world of nonexistence,"_ his eyes shift slightly down and to the side, "I can assure you...that an hour has yet to pass...otherwise, I am certain that the _rest_ would have _loaded_ by now…."

I managed to get out my first full sentence in his presence, "The rest? What's loading?!"

He backed up slightly up a slope, as if readying himself to leave, "You might want to prepare for some lag in a little under three days. By day four's morning, an hour will have passed, and you can expect several hundred...others...that were trapped in the impact of the servers' reaction to starting."

"Severa- wait, others?! What impact?! What's happening? What did you do?!" I started shouting at him, momentarily forgetting that I didn't exactly have any dominance to exert. "What's the point in doing this! Why am I alone here!? Why was I first?!"

"For the love of god stop shouting. To be honest, I liked you better when you stuttered." Well, that caught me a bit off-guard. "If you must know, you came first for no reason other than being the closest human to the impact — it could've easily been anyone else. I, however, had to take longer to manually transfer myself back to data from that stupid Earth form, which I was never meant to have, mind you."

I stepped forward slightly, "So what about all the other questions you didn't answer, huh?! What's the point of this, then?!"

" _Be quiet,"_ he sneered. "There is no need to be so _cocky."_

At that, he stepped back further, and warped away in a whirl of black, smoky flames, leaving me seething below him, and my barn on fire.


	5. One to One Thousand

**One to One Thousand**

* * *

The next two or so days until the 'others' would come were somewhat calm; I mostly spent the time planning what I would have to do for what I could only assume was the arrival of the _rest of my entire freaking school._

That mostly included getting food for the people who would inevitably seek me out for help, or on the other hand, try to raid me and fail because they don't know how to play Minecraft. I ended up harvesting everything in my underground farms, and breeding and culling all my animals, which was actually kinda nerve-wracking having to do that last part for real, but I got used to it. Eventually.

I noticed Herobrine watching me at times; we even talked a little more.

I had found out that 'the impact' was what he was calling the thing that happened in the server room with all of the light that had brought us in here.

He had also said that the others weren't going to spawn at the world's spawn point (where I had spawned), rather, they would be spread out on the opposite side of the river to my base, each about four square blocks (wow redundancy at its finest) away from each other, as putting them all in one spot would crash the world and the servers it ran on, killing everyone inside. I guess that made sense, after all, PE worlds are really only supposed to handle like five people at once. I figured that because of that, the machines must've scanned my phone or something, and overwrote the existing data on the servers with my world, so it was capable of fitting more people. At least the other students don't have to clean out their old documents and other files anymore.

Even after telling me all of that, he still wasn't explaining _why_ he was doing any of this.

"Seriously, what's the point? If you really couldn't care less about the people you trapped in here, why bother spreading them out?" I had asked him while breeding the chickens on day three. I had noticed him looking at me from behind a birch tree from the part of the other bank's grotto where the river narrows into a shallow rill.

Killing a few chickens in the process, he warped over behind me. I hate it when he does that, "It's fun to fuck with people. Can't fuck with them when they're dead."

My face went red at how bluntly he had said that; I always get kinda nervous when people swear. I wasn't believing his bullcrap, though. I turned around and spoke in a hushed voice, careful not to tick him off again, "Oh please, I doubt that's the reason."

"Yes, but I really don't feel like explaining myself to you Rafi, it would be useless information anyway."

He had taken up this annoying habit of calling me 'Rafi' in a condescending tone, although I guess I can't blame him; he didn't exactly know my real name, and I didn't plan on telling him.

I replied, "Well, what's the harm in knowledge for the sake of knowledge?"

He just stared and squinted at me when I said that. He was getting irritated again.

"Ok, ok, I won't ask anymore, but you can't stop me from wanting to find out."

He calmly answered, "We'll see about that," as he disappeared again; he probably just went to find another place to watch me from.

I swear, he's gonna give me paranoia.

* * *

The morning of day four finally came. I sat on the roof of my house with my legs hanging off the edge and watched as the sun rose in the sky and the moon set, thinking about everything that was about to go down.

"Now's probably a weird time to tell you this," I jumped in my skin as I realized Herobrine had been up in a tree, "but if anyone dies, they're dead for good."

"Are you kidding me?! That would've been some good information to have before I almost caught on fire trying to put out your stupid blaze the other day!"

"But you didn't catch fire, and at least I said anything. You could've had the chance to find out the hard way if I hadn't."

I sighed deeply, screamed internally, and rubbed my eyes with my fingers, trying not let him get me worked up, "Well I guess thanks then, you sarcastic ass."

I jumped down from my house, taking a little damage in the process. The only way down was the tree Herobrine was on, and I didn't exactly feel like getting all that close to the guy still staring daggers at me. I walked towards the spruce bridge when I started hearing him speaking again.

"...ve…"

"Hm?" I faced him.

"Four…three…"

"Damn it!" I threw myself to the ground.

"Two…one…"

I shielded my head and prepared for the lag of the others coming.

The last second passed and nothing happened, but I heard him laughing up in the tree.

"Pffft, ha! Oh...oh, that's a good chuckle right there, you're so gullible!" oh my god he snorts when he laughs. "You should see your face right now!"

He was holding his sides and kicking while I picked myself up off the grass, my hair drooping in front of my red face. "Keep kicking like that and you might fall out of that tree, asshat!" I shouted up at him.

"Do all of your insults revolve around the word- augh!"

I had shot an arrow at him that struck him right in the middle of the forehead, which I think surprised him more than hurt him, but it was still satisfying to hear the solid _thunk_ , "I didn't know 'augh' was an insult," I smirked.

"Why you little-" his attention was drawn away from me, however, and he whisked himself away in black smoke again.

"Uh?" I raised an eyebrow as the ground started shaking.

Everything in motion had slowed down as if moving through jello (I miss jello), and I lost my balance as the world started stuttering. I faceplanted hard, as if I was ten times heavier from the lag, and tried to push myself back up to my knees like an idiot. Any movement I tried to make didn't register, and backed up with other attempts until they caught up to each other and all happened at once, throwing me to the ground again, this time onto my back.

Then it all stopped, and as I laid down, dizzy, out of breath, and still on my back, I saw nametags popping up on the other side of the river in the grotto and the dark oak forest behind it. I rolled over onto my stomach weakly.

"I hope they don't touch my shit," I squeezed out, and dunked my head back into the grass while I calmed down.

* * *

 **Can you tell I had fun with this one? My silly fangirl humor is off the charts *pushes up shades* *tips fedora***


	6. Arrival

**Arrival**

* * *

The lag died down after a minute or so, and can I just say that my chat absolutely _exploded_. As I laid on the ground, I scrolled through hundreds of join alerts:

 **Andrew joined the game**

 **TonightsArmy joined the game**

 **Mark joined the game**

 **Squirrel_Bate joined the game**

 **bruh joined the game**

 **Connor joined the game**

 **Justin joined the game**

 **Hailey joined the game**

 **SquareRootOf-1 joined the game**

 **arai26 joined the game**

 **Elizabeth joined the game**

 **Tyler joined the game**

 **Skippy400 joined the game**

 **Scalor joined the game**

I recognized a few as my friends' usernames, and it felt _so good_ to know nothing went wrong out of the blue and they all died. I have a tendency to get overly worried about stupid little illogical things, and the thoughts like to lurk in the back of my mind that something could always go wrong.

I lifted my head up and took a deep breath, working out exactly what I had to do. I stood and stumbled dizzily over to the spruce bridge to the other side, and I was probably about halfway over when I got shoved into the river. I swam back up instinctively and held onto the bridge to hoist myself up, only to find Herobrine looking down at me.

"That's for the arrow, human," he said as he effortlessly pulled said arrow out of his head, like it were a twig stuck in loose dirt, and proceeded to flick it aside.

He warped away, I got back up on the bridge, and I preceded to walk over the rest of the way, soaking wet, although it didn't seem that I was trailing water anywhere. Game logic.

 _Stupid stalker. Just keep ignoring the arrogant prick._

* * *

Actually seeing the sheer amount of people in the forest was insane; everyone had been spawned so close to each other, and it looked like one giant online server hub, but, well, in the forest. And with a bunch of chickens and stuff everywhere.

There were people knocked out on the forest floor breathing heavily, assumably a negative reaction to spawning, most were curled up in the fetal position or staring in shock, yet a select few had already started punching trees and crafting like they didn't care at all about what they had left behind.

Then there were the screamers. And cryers. Oh, and don't forget the people who stared at me like I was… uh... I really don't have a metaphor (or simile, whatever) for what they stared at me like, they just shot me weird glances that had a mix of horror and confusion in them, mostly because I think they were just a little phased at the fact I had armor on.

There were actually quite a few people who spawned on top of the trees too, likely because of the thickness of the dark oak trees' trunks and how densely they were packed together in the forest. Again, a select few were already up and about taking in the surroundings up top.

"Hey!" I jumped a little as I heard the greeting coming down from the canopy above. I looked through the fog of nametags to see a figure with the name 'Squirrel_Bate' above their head waving at me. She had light brown hair and wore a navy-blue hooded cloak over a black tank, dark blue jeans, and muddy, dark brown boots.

"Grace!"

"Ayyy!" weird greeting but whatever. She continued shouting down at me, "That's some nice-looking armor, we going to the End yet?!"

"What?!"

"Yeah, dream-girl, the ~Ennnd!~"

"You must still be loopy from spawning, friggin friendo," I joked back at her, "because this isn't a dream, I'm not a dream-me, and if I were you, I'd get down here before you start tricking your brain into not only thinking this _is_ a dream, but that you can fly, too, and I don't want to have to clean up any crap that happens from that."

"Oh, please, this is MINECRAFT! No one bleeds or anything," she jumps down, and I notice her take about three hearts of damage via her 'arm-bars' and oh god that's a weird name for those. She put her arms up behind her head. "Now let's at least go to the Nether! Where's the portal? I wanna ride on a ghast's back!"

"That is physically impossible. Oh, and I need you to stand still real quick."

 _Wow, for once_ I'm _the one trying to snap_ her _out of a weird rant._

"Uh, sure what fo-," I interrupted her mid-sentence with a quick slap to the face.

"Feeling better?!"

"What the heck was that for, dream-D?!"

 _"Dream-D?_ Okay, seriously, if this is such a dream, why did that hurt? And why would your self-conscience, your dream, be trying to deter you from your inner-most desires?" she then proceeded to poke me on the side of my face, "What are you doing?"

"Oh piss you're real. This is some deep philosophy shit."

"Couldn't quite hear you there."

"'OH PISS YOU'RE REAL!'" she blurted in repetition.

"Pfffft. Better," I cracked.

"So, um, this is happening… apparently… and how are we even here? 'Last thing I remember is blacking out… or falling asleep in algebra? Whatever, this'll be fun at the very least."

". . ." I didn't respond right away; _should I tell her about_ him _? I guess it wouldn't hurt…._

I answered quietly, "Yeah, I think I can explain it, but you should probably come back to my base so no one overhears and freaks out."

"Is it really that bad? Besides, it's not that anyone's not freaking out already — look around us, everyone's staring at your armor. And you said you have a base already? Didn't you just get here too?"

"No, admittedly, I've already been here three days, and besides, this is a world from my phone, where I already had a lot of progress done. Convenient, right?"

"I'll say," she replied. "But… three days? That seems like a lot, it feels like I wasn't out too long, so how did you get here before me?"

"I'll explain that, too, but right now I need you to help me put some food in chests around this clearing here," I gestured to the small clearing right next to us. "I don't want to be blamed if they starve to death; the last thing I need is a bunch of angry high schoolers and a bad reputation. You can come live in my guest room if you'd like and the rest of them can set up around here."

"Guest room, huh? Wait, is this that world with those huge barns and the Herobrine statue you tried to convince me was doin' weird stuff to your world back in July?"

"Heh, yeahhh I remember that. I mean, I had you there for like a good minute or so, right?"

"You wish, but not even close."

* * *

 **Wow, my procrastination was set to maximum overdrive for this one. Apologies! I'd make a heart emoticon, but it would appear that the Doc Manager doesn't register 'less than' signs.**

 **Either way, this seems to be kind of on the short side. Not really what I wanted to do but at least there's anything.**


	7. An Explanation

**An Explanation**

* * *

Delaney led me to her base while no one was looking. It was in this moment as she pulled my arm to have me follow her across a bridge that I looked above her head and saw her nametag. Her's, 'Rafila1,' was slowly turning gray.

"Hey, have you noticed the nametags are fading?"

"Uh? Oh, yeah," she responded slowly, like usual. "My guess would be that it's to help with the lag, 'cause it was a bit crazy when all you guys first loaded on. Yours is fading too, but it brightens when you look at it, see? Seeing all those tags would be an eyesore, anyway. Here, my house is right up here."

"It's right in front of us, I think I can see it," I cracked, "and it doesn't exactly look like much a house to me."

"Well, it's what I've got and I don't feel like changing it."

The 'house' looked to me like more of a big, cubic shed placed in the middle of a spruce forest. It was one that I certainly recognized, after all the times over the summer that she had had me join her world when she stayed over at my house.

She openly admitted to me often that she wasn't the most creative when it came to bases, making them only for 'objective use' most of the time, and this one was no exception. She opened up the door to the little wood cube and led me in.

"Quaint place," I observed.

The walls had piles (well, as much of a pile as you can have in a cube-based game, anyway) of chests stacked against the walls in an orderly fashion. They looked at least a little organized into stacks, most of them clearly labeled. Delaney rummaged around in the one in the far right corner next to her bed and pulled out an iron sword, which she then shoved into the floorboards.

"Alrighty," she began, "let's get started. The chests to the right of the door have food we can put out, and I've got some materials I can give you for armor and the lot."

"Aren't you gonna tell me what's going on?"

"... Right, that." She sat on the edge of a crafting bench and leaned back with a deep breath. "From what I can gather, we are stuck in Minecraft, on my world, with probably no way out."

"Well I assumed that, but _why_ are we here?"

" _Herobrine."_

"Oh for the love- you're pulling my leg; I knew you had an obsession with that kinda stuff, but just on out with it already."

"I'm serious! Herobrine has somehow warped our whole school body into Minecraft, and since me and my phone were the closest to that bright light that went off, it's on _my_ world... Okay, yeah, wow, that sounds really weird out loud, but I swear he's the guy who caused all this!"

"What makes you think the infamous urban legend himself is here? Besides us ending up here being a reason in of itself, I mean."

Delaney stared me deeply in the eyes as she got an axe out of her chest and proceeded to unflinchingly knock a hole straight into the wall behind her.

"Hey, what are you doi-" I started, but before I could finish, she went up to me and dragged me over by my cloak to the hole.

She said bluntly, "Grace, I want you to take a good, long look at that statue and try to ask me that again."

I looked up and saw a massive statue of the default skin with eyes that I could assume were using redstone lighting. "Woah, that's big. Nice eye effects."

"I didn't do that, that's the thing! I made the statue, yes, and I had it set up with a daylight sensor to light up two pairs of two redstone lamps whenever night came, yes. When I first came online and saw that they were lit during the day, I had thought I just messed up the redstone again and I had to screw with the sensors a little bit more, but the thing is... redstone lamps are _yellow."_

"So?"

"So, they shouldn't be white," she began to shout manically, "and lit up with the power of nine-thousand and one freaking suns in the middle of the day!"

"Alright, I believe you. It's pretty hard to refute the evidence. So you said you've been here... a few days… somehow? Have you seen the guy yet?"

" _YES. Several times_. He's basically a stalker by now; for all we know he could be watching us _right now_. He's told me a few things, though: one, there is a ratio of time in here to time in the real world, meaning that a full twenty-four hours here, while feeling like a normal-length day, is actually only twenty minutes in the real world, like playing an actual game of Minecraft for a full day cycle. This means that three days have passed for me in here while an hour has passed in the real world and that it took an hour for you all to load in."

I leaned into sitting on one of the chests and put my chin on my hand. "So, you actually met Herobrine? What's he like?"

"He's an ass."

"Le gasp! Language, my child," I said sarcastically, dramatically putting my fingers to my mouth.

"Sorry," she said, holding her arms and looking down, "I've been under some stress lately." She looked back up and smiled at me as if with embarrassment. "Do you think you'll be fine with him?"

"Nothing like being watched by your friendly neighborhood stalker!"

She laughed a tittering laugh, turning red from smiling. "Yeah, nothing," she finished. "Well anyway," she said, suddenly serious, "the other thing I learned is: two, if you die, it's game over. I don't know whether this is the truth or if he's screwing with me, but this could be a matter of life or death for all the people in here."

"So, this is basically a Sword Art Online type of thing?"

"Yeeeah, but this'll probably have a better plot and slightly less Mary-Sue-ing."

"Good point."

"I don't know how long it will be until we get help. I've done the math, and at the ratio of one hour to three days, a day in real life is seventy-two in here and a week is _five-hundred and four._ Grace, we might be in here for _years_ before someone finds us and is capable of getting us out." She paused, looked awkwardly out the hole she made in her house, and then turned back to me. "The only way I can think of getting around the sheer amount of time is if someone freezes the servers while we're in here. My theory is that that would put us in a sort of stasis, creating the illusion of a kind of time skip."

"Sounds about right," I responded, standing back up.

"I know this is a lot to take in, but-"

"Dude, this sounds awesome."

"But people could die!" she shouted. "Do you really want the blame on your shoulders?"

"Well, we'll teach them how to do things, and it's not like we're the only ones out of hundreds who play Minecraft, and it's not really a hard game, especially now that we aren't limited to controllers and can physically do things ourselves. Word'll get around on how things work, and we'll be fine."

"But-"

I gripped her shoulder and tried to make a face to reassure her. "Trust me on this. We got this, no need to worry so much."

"We got this..." she echoed.


	8. Drawing a Blank

**Drawing a Blank**

* * *

"We got this..." she echoed. She took a deep inhale and breathed out. "Alright, we can start getting the supplies ready. Go on and grab some, using the inventory is pretty easy."

I opened up one of the chests to the right of the door and a grey window filled with items popped up inside, with another one in front of me. I looked over to see Delaney's hands tapping on the icons in another of her chests, automatically moving them to her box, and I started doing the same. We were loaded up and I was ready to go through the door, but as I opened it, a thin boy popped up in front from the other side and finished opening it for me, thrusting the door's knob out of my hand. I stepped back, not expecting anyone to have followed us, especially not Justin Doyle.

"What are you doing, _Justin,"_ I commanded of him. One does not simply like Justin. You're either his best friend or annoyed to _death_ by the scampy, flamboyant sophomore. Or you don't know him. Or you're Delaney and don't care, although, that's pretty interchangeable with not knowing him.

"Wow, _rude,"_ he said, in his scoffing voice that sounded like he was trying to be 'queen of divas.' He looked back behind me. "Is that Delaney Keane?

"Hi Justin," she chirped.

I snapped at him, "You _followed_ us?!"

"Yeah, free country."

"Well technically, we're not in any country right now," Delaney stated, matter-of-factly.

"So," he began, "what the heck _is_ all of this? You said this was 'your world?' What's _that_ supposed to mean, exactly?"

"Uhhmmmmmmmmmmm..."

"Delaney?"

"UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH."

"Delaney, why are we in Roblox? How did you even do this?"

"Hecking ummmm it's Minecraft. Uh, you're really putting me in an awkward situation here, to be honest... just... um," she started to panic a little, "go back to the forest real quick... we're trying set up and get organized... and all that. We'll be right over; we were just heading out. For now, try and get people to make themselves some shelter. You know, houses and all that."

"Well, _why?_ Why should _we_ do it? From what it seems, this is your fault, and what was that about some _stalker_ guy?"

His inquiry made Delaney's face turn red again, and she shifted back in discomfort.

By then, I'd had enough of Justin, and trying to stay calm, I nudged him away. "OKAY Justin, let's all just go up, got it? We're right behind you, let's just GO." Justin begrudgingly walked back across the spruce bridge, and once he was out of earshot, I turned back and saw Delaney with a stony expression on her face. "What's wrong? I asked. "Was my pep talk not enough?"

"No, it's just that... my situation puts me in the shoes of a leader, but I don't want to be the person on top, Grace. This world was always mostly for singleplayer; I never let people on it through the school wi-fi, just friends and sometimes my brother. I don't think I'm going to be able to handle this, and I get the feeling everyone's gonna be trying to swarm my base for their own good rather than try to go it themselves. _"_

"Well, you can't expect them to get along with no experience completely on their own. But I told you, we'll be fine. People will understand eventually."

"But when it comes down to it, _I'm selfish._ I don't want to be a leader. There's too much responsibility, and everybody crowds you. I don't like the idea of all the interaction, and I can't stand the idea of having to help when I'm not sure if it would do anything."

"Well, that's a massive load. You know this game well enough, heck, I haven't played by myself in forever, Aliza hasn't played in years, and I don't think Olivia's _ever_ played it, so if anyone's qualified, it's you. You need to suck it up and take it head on, and it's not like you're on your own; I'm here, too, and so are Aliza and Olivia once we find them. Plus, these are high schoolers we're talking about. They may be crazy at times, but most are more than capable of managing themselves."

She smiled, reassured again, and we headed back outside to the dark oak forest with the supplies and chests in tow.

* * *

Night was approaching, and a basic camp containing about a quarter of the students had been set up in the forest. Some must've been set up in other areas, presumably led by other frequent players of the game. People hunkered down with each other and their coveted food supplies, and quite a few farms had even been set up, too. Delaney had been able to convince Justin that the 'stalker' she had been talking about was a part of the game, a creeper, so there were no worries of immediate mass panic, at least for the time being. Word got out on the possibility of death, though, but that didn't seem to come as much of a surprise, after all, we were still people in this game, and we felt every bit of pain that registered on our gauges. It was mostly the terror of monsters and survival that got people going.

People were angry, yes, because according to them, "being on _her_ game must mean she'd had _something_ to do with it," but just as many took her side, if not more. What would be the end game in pointing fingers at the innocent, after all?

That idea slowly settled in as people prioritized making shelter, but as night fell and the teens took cover in wooden and dirt hovels, only some with beds, people wondered: if not her, who was responsible?

And why were none of the teachers in here?

* * *

That night, I camped in Delaney's little spruce wood guest room. It was a small, separate building next to a field; a little cube not dissimilar to her house.

Dusk fell, and as I laid on top of my blanket in the coolness of the biome's air, I found myself unable to sleep. Maybe it was the events of the day, or maybe it was the pouring rain, but I simply stared at the wall on the other side of the room. Moonlight streamed in through the oaken door. I stirred in my bed, moving the sheets back and forth. I heard unearthly wind howling outside, and with that came a sound like chimes and a siren song.

I found myself pulling up the hood of my cloak and walking outside into the wind, taking a breath of the cold of the taiga. My jeans were already getting drenched, but I didn't mind, I was distracted. Something drove me that night to follow the wind's chimes to the camp across the river, to wander the alleys created by the now quiet, stagnant compounds of improvised shelter, and as I got closer and closer, the wind felt warmer and warmer.

There was a voice, a humming to my dulling senses, and shadows lept across the walls as I walked the camp in a slow stupor. At one point, a shadow found itself across from me in an alley that was not but a block wide, staring at me with dark eyes. It laughed, giggled, and it melted into the earth below.

A hand reached out across my shoulder from behind me, from nowhere, from darkness, and the arm that followed felt real and wrong. I snapped out of my waking dream and darted my eyes over to the hand in fear, but it simply whisked itself away. Nothing but shadows on these walls.

There was a flicker of green, a predatory eye catching the light of the moon, but that, too, was nothing but shadows.

The shadows whispered, they surrounded me, the strange chiming got louder and the wind stronger, howling, hot and energized. A feminine voice seemed to manifest from those shadows, some counterpart to a good I had never bothered to see.

It seeped into me, a wicked black void, a deep, penetrating empowerment, like something new surged through me, like I could destroy anything that I had a hatred for, like I could weather away all that I disapproved of.

I lost vision in my right eye, and everything looked glassy. There was a quiet, persuasive voice, and something primal in me wanted to follow it.

That night I blacked out.

* * *

I woke up the next morning with the events of the night seemingly nothing more than a fever dream, one that I would undoubtedly not remember anyway as anything more than a surreal and distant thought. After all, my vision was fine, and I was perfectly dry. I wonder if Minecraft has more of these dreams in store for me?

I walked outside to a beautiful, clear morning, one with a still rising sun.

I spoke aloud to myself, "Alright-y, maybe I can get something done today."

The campers had decided to meet today with Delaney, and hence me, to try and figure out how to eventually escape the game. _'_ _I must be late_ ,' I thought, because as I came up upon the bridge, I could see on the other side that there was a crowd already gathering towards the front of the camp. As I started walking over, a petite ginger-haired girl with braids walked up to me with a gravely worried expression on her face: my friend Jillian.

She stared at me teary-eyed, and hoarsely whispered out, "Where's Delaney?"

"Is she not already there?" I asked. Good to know I wasn't the only one not up, but Jillian's mood had me deathly concerned. She was kind and empathetic, so seeing her like this hurt.

We turned back to the other shore and rushed up to Delaney's oak shack. I opened up the door and found her camped out in the corner, sprawled face-down over her bedsheets. We went over and shook her awake, Jillian especially worriedly. Delaney jolted awake, slowly lifting herself up to her elbows and turned to face us looking through her awfully long bedhead with her strangely purple-tinted eyes.

"Does someone need something?" she slurred out.

Jillian just limply pulled on her by her hand and led her out of bed and through the doors. We made it over the bridge and up the opposite bank when Jillian slowly halted and simply pointed towards the crowd, putting her head in her hands.

Us two anxiously slipped through the clots of students and came towards the front to find something horrifying:

Justin's body, cut in half across his waist, leaning against a dark oak tree, darkly bloodied and singed.

A few in the crowd were looking in their or their friends' chat boxes, including Delaney, who was giving a death stare at her's that spoke of deep thought and confusion. I took a look at the chat log, as well, scrolling through the messages to find his cause of death that had everyone intrigued.

 **998anxel_Xx** **was slain by a zombie**

 **SquareRootOf-1 hit the ground too hard**

 **{TonightsArmy}** haha get rekt

 **{TonightsArmy}** wait shit do we not respawn

 **{Hw231}** no

 **{TonightsArmy}** shit he's dead

 **TonightsArmy was shot by a skeleton**

 **~Justin~ was slain by**

 **zshriboxd45 drowned**

 **Nasya hit the ground too hard**

...

 _ **~Justin~ was slain by**_

...

The killer's name was blank. Around me, I saw onlookers recoiling in horror of the first death, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Delaney running back across the bridge to her base.


End file.
